Something is up there
UFO acknowledgement pursued by reporter

by Susan Mikula Campbell
Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, April 24, 2008

Leslie Kean, author and investigative reporter, wants the U.S. government to open a new, official investigation into UFOs. She spoke Tuesday at Niagara County Community College. A photo of a UFO sighting taken by an Oregon farmer in 1950 is shown in the background. (photo courtesy of NCCC)

For the past eight years, investigative reporter Leslie Kean has been chasing unidentified flying objects.

She’s not talking about little green men or even reported alien abductions. Her quest is to bring official data into the public arena and to get the U.S. government to stop being so secretive and acknowledge that something is up there.

Kean was guest speaker at Niagara County Community College on Tuesday. Her articles have appeared in newspapers such as the Boston Globe and the Sacramento Bee and on national wire services.

Zillions of reports and photos can be found on the Internet, most of which can’t be trusted, she said.

“This is material nobody can argue with,” she said. “That’s the way it works in journalism – to present facts.”

When you’re talking about UFOs, you’re not talking about a craft from outer space, but simply an object in the sky that is unidentified, she said. However, many of the documented and investigated reports do show very sophisticated capabilities that don’t exist here, such as the ability to fly at right angles and stop in midair.

Kean and documentary filmmaker James Fox organized a press conference last November at the National Press Club, featuring military and government officials and pilots from seven countries who had either encountered UFOs or were charged with investigating them. She even took the unprecedented step of filing and winning a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the National Aeronautical Space Association for UFO information.

In her talk, Kean gave details of several UFO sightings that have been thoroughly investigated.

She has interviewed many of the witnesses of the Kecksburg, Pa., sighting in 1965. They saw a fireball land in the woods and give off blue light and smoke. Before the military cordoned off the area, some people got to the site and reported an acorn-shaped, bronze-colored craft with no seams that had a bumper on the bottom with strange lettering. Witnesses also said they saw the military haul this object away on a flatbed truck. NASA, the U.S. Army and the Air Force were on site. The Air Force announced it was a meteor.

Kean’s lawsuit against NASA should mean the release of some documents on UFO investigation.

“Who knows, maybe we’re going to find something about Kecksburg in these documents,” she said.

More recently, in 2006, pilots and airport personnel at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport reported a UFO that appeared for several minutes, then shot straight up into the sky. The FAA said it was the weather, Kean said.
At Kean’s November press conference, moderator was former Arizona governor Fife Symington, who was involved in the Phoenix Lights case in 1997. Hundreds of people reported seeing a giant triangle of lights moving without sound across the sky. At the time Symington held a press conference to downplay the incident and even had his chief of staff dress up in an alien costume and unmask. Ten years later, Symington admitted he also had seen the lights and regrets what he did.
“I still don’t know what it was,” he said, noting the official explanation of flares doesn’t work. “I’ve never seen flares fly in formation.”
France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Chili and Peru all have agencies charged with investigating the UFO phenomenon, Kean said. The United States should do so as well, if only over concern for aviation safety and national security implications.
“We want the U.S. government to stop perpetuating the myth that all UFOs can be explained,” Kean said. “We deserve a more open and serious presentation of the facts by our government.”
Kean, who is now director of investigations for the Coalition for Freedom of Information, said her Web site at www.freedomofinfo.org has a page that provides links to other sites that provide legitimate information about UFOs.